Join Holly Usher, Beaver Trust’s Senior Education Officer, and dive into how beaver education can spark lifelong connections with nature. From school workshops to home education, she shares how inclusivity and hands-on learning are shaping the next generation of environmental champions.
‘They’re like a finely oiled machine helping the environment – we have to protect them!’ piped a six-year-old on one of our recent school workshops as part of Beaver Trust’s national education programme, launched this year and funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. It’s a programme firmly rooted in the belief that children hold the key to a secure and sustainable future. If we care about the value of our wild spaces, then their environmental education should matter to us all. As both a teacher and a mum, I’m thrilled by the programme’s commitment to ensuring every child and young person has equal access to an education that sparks a lifelong connection to nature and a sense of responsibility for protecting our planet.
And what better way to start than with the humble beaver? This remarkable creature provides an engaging entry point into environmental education, demonstrating the power of nature to transform ecosystems, restore biodiversity and build resilient landscapes. Guided by the “head, heart and hands” model, our approach pairs a strong foundation in scientific knowledge with a genuine love for wild spaces, naturally inspiring the desire to take practical action.
From the outset, one of our top priorities has been making sure children and young people from all backgrounds feel truly included – because every child deserves the confidence to stand up for the natural world and know they belong in this space. With that in mind, we carefully chose a diverse mix of schools, home education communities and beaver sites to partner with. This commitment to inclusivity shapes our work, from selecting locations that connect with the people who live there to tailoring workshops to each unique group.
Whether it’s an urban school or a small rural homeschooling network, we strive to make learning feel both relevant and welcoming. We also recognise that simply living near green spaces doesn’t guarantee easy, fair or regular access, so we’re intentional about spending time in beaver wetlands and fully immersing children in those habitats. Our initial surveys with the children revealed that they all universally want to spend more time outdoors and they really value the outdoor space and want to protect it.
Inclusivity of learning approaches
Our first home education workshops in Sussex have further validated just how needed high-quality, inspiring and inclusive workshops are for children outside traditional school systems. We’ve worked hard to design a programme that doesn’t imitate a standard classroom lesson, instead offering hands-on opportunities that families can adapt in whichever way suits them best. Getting creative with art is a fantastic way to weave in scientific facts about beavers and spark further curiosity.
One six-year-old at a recent workshop, who loves birds and had memorised the species which lived near him, was incredibly excited to learn about beaver wetlands and the habitat they provided for these bird species. An amazing conversation ensued alongside a beautiful collage demonstrating his new knowledge about the impacts of this keystone species. Upcoming home educator workshops in 2025 will also include time spent in beaver wetlands, encouraging children to look for signs of beavers and monitor the local biodiversity. Responding to feedback from these sessions has also been key to ensuring our approach really works for families, adapting to the variability of learning approaches.
What is particularly striking in these sessions is how excited children and adults alike become about beavers and their positive impacts. Sparking inspiration in a home educators session inevitably leads to more learning and the child-led model that most home educators follow is a fabulous opportunity to capitalise on this and encourage action. Beavers provide so many conversation starters and learning directions, from the incredible iron-filled enamel covering their teeth to the species that flock to beaver wetlands and to deeper conversations with older children about climate resilience and human interaction: beavers prompt curiosity in all age groups!
Role-modelling environmental learning in schools
We have established long-term partnerships with eight schools this year and they have demonstrated the real differences that exist between communities of young people and their baseline level of knowledge. Some children already know quite a bit about British wildlife, while others are just starting out. By tailoring workshops for each group, we can dive deeper into learning – something that’s not always easy to find in environmental education and the one-size-fits-all model. One participating school linked with the Ealing Beaver Project in central London expressed its excitement to be involved with a project which was able to change and adapt to meet the needs of the children. English is a second language for a large proportion of children in this school, and teachers there expressed a real value in their students having role models who look like them enthusing about the environment and who can talk to them specifically and the challenges their communities face when engaging with environmental issues.
Community really is core in Ealing and it is vital for children and families to engage together to recognise the value of the green oases, not only for biodiversity and beavers but also for people’s wellbeing and mental health. We are starting to see how linking the children, families, schools and other organisations in a network around sites might help to rebuild cultural knowledge and their ability to generate sustainable practical action well into the future. I personally cannot wait to start immersing the children in the sites so they can become the local experts. I have dreams of children leading adults on beaver tours and being able to talk with passion about the beaver and its ecological importance.
What’s next for the education project?
Next up for the education project is to take these children to their local beaver sites in the spring and bring their class-based workshops to life. These sessions will foster greater nature connection, helping children to explore, investigate and link to the wider impacts that beavers have on biodiversity. As these children then head into a second year of the project in later 2025, the hope is that our continued presence and deeper levels of learning will inspire them to take action well into the future.
We’ll be expanding school outreach across Scotland this year and delivering more engaging workshops for educators. To learn how to get involved, use our free resources, or follow the programme’s learning journey, sign up for our new education bulletin or follow us on social media.
